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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Your blogmistress meets some of her Journey rock stars!

Disclaimer – this is a blogmistress fangirl post; back to regular political programming later…

What a night! I’m on cloud 9. Yes, reliving my teen years while I still can!
Sorry for the lack of Tweets, but many of us had trouble b/c of poor cell connections. But I did REPRESENT, my fellow Plokkers!

The other good news is I have a ton of pix and good video (up later). I was able to get into a Meet & Greet and did in fact meet lead singer Arnel Pineda and Jonathan Cain! But first…
I met Arnel Pineda Rocks administrator Nicole (Coley) — thanks for getting (Kate in so she could take the M&G pix).

We also met Neal’s wife Ava, who was outside the M&G area. We discussed them getting hitched in Paris, as well as our (Canadian) marriage. She and Neal have to get married here in the States for it to be legal. Ours is not legal in NC (it is in the 6 states where SSM is legal). Someday…

It was a thrill to meet Jonathan Cain — the man responsible for penning many of the hits most of you know, including Don’t Stop Believing. He was mellow, kind and thoughtful.

And yes, Arnel is as wonderful as can be. I brought him a Durham Bulls baseball shirt. The Bulls and my town were featured in the movie Bull Durham, and wanted for him to have something local to remember us by:

He also signed my photobook of shots from the Vegas concert! He didn’t have to take the time (they said no autographs at the M&G) but he did.

Journey founder and guitar god Neal Schon and powerhouse drummer Deen were not at this Meet & Greet (or I missed them); bassist Ross Valory was there but occupied so I didn’t get a pic with him. Darn! Guess this means I have to try again!

But Neal did get a surprise during the concert when I held up this poster (we were in the 6th row, just far enough to miss getting a high five, but when you see the pix you’ll see just how close we were. Neal saw the poster, squinted and read it, then gave a big smile to us! Here’s what the poster said:

I flashed my “Plokker’s Ride” and “Eclipse Rocks” posters during the concert and AP pointed it out, and made eye contact and smiled several times during songs, most prominently during DSB; the guy in front of me turned around and said “he’s singing to you!” and gave me a fist bump…
Makes me want to go to another concert soon! Plokkers ride!